Components of a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy

Just how important is it to have a digital marketing strategy?

According to the 2015 Digital Marketing Strategy Survey, over half of marketers reported that the lack of an effective marketing strategy was the biggest obstacle to their success. But evidently just having a plan isn?t enough?the report also revealed that only 28 percent of B2B marketers who had a digital marketing strategy found that their plan was successful at meeting important goals.

Implementing a marketing plan is a clear challenge for many businesses, making it all the more essential that your company takes advantage of this trend. Building a directed strategy to guide the creation, posting, and quality of your content is one of the best ways to meet your marketing goals and improve the value that you provide your readers.

Knowing Your Market

The first part of your marketing plan has to be knowing your market. Without an in-depth understanding of who you?re marketing to, your efforts are doomed to fail.

To learn more about this, you?ll need to know who?s reading your material, what value they?re finding from it, and what types of content draw the biggest crowds. This data can be gleaned with the help of analytics (like those provided by Google) that track page hits, downloads, and visitor duration across time. Keeping this information in mind will help formulate your marketing strategy, having?the knowledge of what is necessary to meet the expectations of your audience.

Once you?ve established who you?re marketing for, you need to know how to reach this population in the most effective way possible. Our 2015 survey revealed the most popular types of inbound marketing, ranked by their effectiveness:

• Email (57%)
• Website/Blog creation (52%)
• SEO (48%)
• Content (43%)
• Social media (41%)
• Paid search (20%)
• Ecommerce (7%)
• Texting/Mobile/SMS (6%)

However, take these stats with a grain of salt. Email may still be king of inbound marketing due to its cost-efficiency and broad outreach, but, according to ResearchGate?younger populations respond better to marketing focused around the technology used in their daily lives, such as texting, social media, and subscription services like podcasts.

Don?t take anyone?s word for it when it comes to reaching your market?you know who your readers are. Keep your target audience in mind and figure out what methods of outreach will be most helpful to them.

Targeted Content

Too many businesses fall into the trap of thinking that their content should be created in a way that helps their business the most.

The goal of your content isn?t to help yourself, it?s to help your customers. One of the most important parts of a digital marketing strategy is to create your content with the needs of your market as your first priority. Before you try any other techniques like enhancement for SEO or automated email marketing, you need to make sure your content provides value to your readers.

Keeping your digital marketing customer-centric is one of the best ways to build a regular readership. If you want to see the benefits of increased lead generation, click-through rates, and other visitor-focused performance metrics that are necessary to the success of your brand, prioritize putting your customer?s needs above your own.

A Basic Strategy

Despite the difficulties that businesses have faced when trying to implement a marketing plan, the basic principles are very simple. You only need to know:

• Who your market is
• How to reach them effectively
• What content is important to them

Once you have these down, you?ll be well on your way to building a digital marketing strategy that meet your goals while enhancing the lives of your readership.

Before you can build a full digital marketing strategy, you have to know where you are currently performing and lacking. Our Inbound Marketing Assessment identifies the pain points within your inbound strategies and tactics so you can reformulate your marketing strategy armed with the knowledge of what you’re doing well and where you can improve. Begin formulating your digital marketing strategy with our inbound marketing assessment. ?Just click the button below to get started!